Song of Glory Won
by sapphireswimming
Summary: AU. Tucker knew as soon as Danny called a meeting that something was wrong. Then again, when was anything ever right these days?


**Another "songbird au" to originate from the tumblr askbox game where an au is based off of the first song to come up on shuffle. saintdeanthomas sent this particular ask and the inspirational song was Erin by the celtic pop group Solas. Which means that this is the "erin au" that some people were asking about because I mentioned it a couple times in one of the recent chapters of Apricity.**

**I've been slaving away at this one for the past month and hoped to post it for Tucker Appreciation Week but it kept growing and I didn't finish until this morning. So here you go, in all its hard earned glory. The longest oneshot I've ever written. alksjdf ahhhhhhhh~**

**And a huge thank you to Laora for letting me use one of the titles off her wall of ideas. :'D**

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**Song of Glory Won**

March 19, 2015

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Tucker lurched through the door, eyes sweeping the nearly deserted space in a panic. Then he fixed on the black hair settled away from him on one of the only pieces of furniture in the room. Sam turned toward him, eyeing him over the top of the dusty remains of a once overstuffed armchair, but even the assurance that her presence provided him did little to dampen his fears. No one else was in the room.

"Where's Danny?" Tucker asked, words jumbling together in his worry. He double checked every corner of the room even though he already knew that his best friend wasn't there. "He hasn't asked for all of us to get together since…" he drew in a shaky breath, visibly trying to pull himself together. "What's going on?"

"Hey, Tucker," Sam said softly. She was pale and worn, with bags under her eyes that hadn't been there the last time they saw each other.

Gears automatically switched in his brain, pulling him to a new train of thought as he took in her haggard appearance. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay," she reassured him.

His heart beat slowed its racing for a few moments as one fear was assuaged, before a new one took its place. "Is Danny?"

"He's fine," she said. "Calm down, Tucker. We're okay. Just… something has come up."

"Something has come up?" he repeated much more calmly than he would have expected his voice to sound given all of the horrible things that that sentence implied, given the way their lives played out. "What does that…" he broke off to take a deep breath, come around the chair to take a seat on the creaking bench opposite Sam. She followed him until they were staring face to face.

"What's Vlad done now?" Tucker asked, eyes cold.

As of that morning, he hadn't come across any new announcements or changes that would be cause for panic, or calling a meeting like this. Then again, the official press didn't say anything detrimental about their dear mayor, so Tucker had to read between the lines on that one. But he did have some other, less lawyer approved, ways of keeping tabs on the man who controlled nearly half of the ghosts showing their faces around town.

He had to, just to try to keep an edge on not dying each week.

The guy was Danny's arch enemy, though, and so of course Danny would have the lowdown when things started happening behind the scenes that Tucker didn't even have access to.

Sam sighed. "I'm sure Danny will want to tell you," she said. And when Tucker fidgeted, about to press her for answers, she tried to smile. It didn't reach her eyes.

But it hadn't in a long time.

"He knows more than me," she added, trying to prove that she wasn't just trying to put him off.

At the soft barb, Tucker backed down, his shoulders deflating. "Okay," he said, taking a deep breath, hands rubbing down his face like he could squeeze the tension out of it.

"Okay," he said again after a minute. Looking up from the black steel toed combat boots that his eyes had been solidly fixed on, he asked again, "You doing okay, though?"

Her mouth turned up with fond affection. "As well as can be expected," she allowed.

A snort. "Yeah, how are we all?" he asked with a shake of his head.

"Alive," Sam answered. "Mostly, at least," she added bitterly.

Tucker looked over sharply, trying to keep from remarking upon the tone that she'd largely given up in the past few years, despite how much it had defined her in the past. Its appropriateness at all times made it too mainstream and common for her liking anymore.

Then with a rush of concern, he gave that up, too aware of the history of their lives to bother about preserving niceties or saving face.

"Okay," he decided sharply, scooting forward. "That's it, what happened?"

Sam blinked languidly, seemingly unaffected by Tucker's tone. Except that they had been friends for so long and it really wasn't fair to even unintentionally string him along, no matter what Danny had instructed.

She shifted against the sagging chair, crossing legs covered with faded purple pants, much more practical than tights even if she'd tried hard to preserve the style she'd embraced in high school.

Tucker's eyes drifted down to the familiar combat boots, worn and frayed nearly beyond use except that she would never get rid of them. Reinforce the entire thing with steel, maybe, but never let them go. The black surface had swallowed so much blood and dirt and ectoplasm over the years that he didn't doubt they could spout a ghost of their own if ever retired. But Sam would never relinquish the boots that had done her such good service over the years. For all her spiky exterior, she held tightly onto the things she loved. Too tightly maybe, but he certainly couldn't fault her for that. Not when they had so little to hold onto. Not when just the sight of her footwear twisted something deep in his gut as he waited for an answer.

"What do you think happened?" she eventually replied with a sigh, picking at the frayed edges of her long top. "Vlad happened."

Tucker clamped his jaw together with an audible click to keep from blowing up then and there. Fists clenched on his lap. The anger rushed over him in a wave of intense fiery red-white even if the answer didn't come as a surprise.

"I swear," he ground out, trying to decide on which long thought through plan of wishful vengeance tumbling through his head to voice, "I'm gonna…"

"No, you're not…" a new voice contradicted him, soft but with steely confidence.

Tucker bodily flinched at the unexpected noise behind him, half twisting up and out of his seat before his brain registered that it was Danny, flying in through one of the exterior walls. Invisibility and not needing to come in through doors were certainly strengths in the not-being-detected department.

It took concerted effort to tamp down on the adrenaline that had surged through his system, but after a few heartbeats, Tucker was able to dismiss the threat level so that the blood didn't think it belonged in his ears. His stance didn't relax at all, however, switching from a haphazard response to a threat to concerted defiance of what his best friend had just told him.

"Oh yeah?" he bristled at having his unfinished threats unequivocally swept away. "Why not?" he demanded.

"Because you can't," came the frustratingly short response.

Tucker stared Danny down as he came closer, effortlessly drifting around the dilapidated pieces of furniture.

"Again," he gritted his teeth. "Why not? We've always been able to before."

"Yeah, well," Danny breathed out tiredly as he touched down, immaculate white boots scraping against the dirty concrete. "Vlad made a move."

Tucker stilled, hands twitching at his side like he didn't know what to do with them as he tried processing what Danny had said. What this meant for them. Something momentous, he knew. It always was when Vlad came out from behind the shadows long enough to take credit for anything.

And whatever it had been was huge. Warranted calling an official meeting even though they'd dealt with barrages of fetid ghosts and underhanded assassination attempts on Jack via messaging.

Tucker didn't want to think about what Vlad could have pulled now that would have sapped the strength out of his best friend. The hero that Amity Park hated still radiated power even when he was beaten to a pulp, ectoplasm running down shredded gloves, pushing himself off of the rough pavement to face the next threat. Something about Phantom refused to cave in no matter what his circumstances were and Tucker idolized him for that.

Not that he'd ever confess it out loud, but they all knew where the trio stood, even when they'd had to operate on an increasingly individual basis over the past few months just to stay on top of everything.

Whenever he'd been close enough to the action to catch a glimpse of Danny, the guy'd been tirelessly taking down ghosts and trying to help the townsfolk who, after Tucker's desperate attempts to influence them in favor of the white haired ghost, were looking at with a little less hostility these days. Maybe. At least, when it wasn't their personal property that had been demolished.

But now he just looked tired. They'd always known it was safe let their guards down around each other but, as he watched Danny slowly brush past him, he was struck by the change when there was no one to posture for, no front to maintain for unconvinced or hostile people who may be watching.

"Move?" Tucker finally repeated, pleased at how little his voice shook. He could almost pretend it was all from rage and not the cold chill travelling down his spine to coalesce in the pit of his stomach.

Danny's fingers trailed along split wood of the table beside him. "Offered an ultimatum," he said softly, not meeting Tucker's eyes.

Tucker swallowed thickly. Ultimatum was an overdramatic word at the best of times. "That, uh," he resisted the urge to clear his throat, knowing that it was just fear closing it up and he wouldn't let it have even this small victory.

"That doesn't sound good," he continued roughly. "What…" He contemplated repeating the word to add the appropriate questioning inflection at the end but fell silent. Everyone knew what he meant.

Danny finally lifted his head, not looking at Tucker, but focusing all of his attention on Sam. He was quiet for so long that Tucker looked at Sam too, wondering if there was some unspoken conversation that he was supposed to understand but didn't. It wouldn't be the first time that the lovebirds seemed to communicate on the same wavelength, leaving him out in the cold. Most of the time, he didn't really mind it, but what he wanted now was a straight answer.

Danny's eyes flickered over to him, then dropped to the floor.

"I stand down," he said quietly, as if it could soften the blow of Vlad's demands.

Tucker blinked, honestly too confused at the words to be outraged at what the mayor was asking him to do. Did… Vlad not know Danny at all?

It took a few seconds to string words together again. "He… expects you to do that?" he asked incredulously.

Part of him, too battered by their lives and the strain under which they operated on a daily basis, had the irrational desire to laugh, harshly, wheezing at Vlad's ridiculous claim until he was doubled over, wiping tears from his eyes while Sam and Danny watched on uncomprehendingly because nothing about this was funny.

He frantically tamped down on the urge, scared at how close he was to falling apart.

Stuffing a hand into on of his many cargo pockets, he fiddled with whatever scraps of twisted metal he'd picked up on his way here, fingertips tracing the ragged edges that might have been ripped off of a fender. The threat of nearly slicing his finger open sharpened his mind, brought him back to the present.

"Not the ghosts," Danny sighed, shaking his head. "But fighting him specifically."

Which, okay, was a better alternative than what he'd originally thought except that Vlad controlled and sent out at least a third of all of the ghosts that ended up in Amity Park anyway. Where did he think the line fell? Would fighting Skulker now constitute breaking the deal? Or another ghost that they didn't know had ties to Plasmius?

That slope was too slippery, the conditions too easy to be manipulated until they were standing in the middle of a cage blocking their every move, not even letting them breathe. Wasn't everything they did designed to beat Vlad in the end?

But that wasn't even considering the main argument against the whole stupid idea.

"And… if he tries to kill your dad again?" Tucker asked, brow creased in worry.

Sam moved over and Danny sank down into the empty space, bonelessly melting against his girlfriend and the chair. One gloved hand moved over to rub across his temple, the other sightlessly seeking Sam's hand. She took it in hers and his fingers closed tightly.

"No. And he knows that I'll protect my parents if he tries anything."

Tucker nodded, scooting back to his own wooden bench and sitting down to be at eye level with his friends again. It tilted toward one leg that was shorter than the others.

"So… he'll stand down on that front?" he asked, just to clarify. It was a huge concession if it was true.

"If I stop trying to organize resistance against him."

Tucker was shaking his head before he even knew it, flying up out of his seat again as it creaked beneath him, eyes wide. "But that means he wins!" he protested, taking a few hurried steps away just because he needed to do _something_, before whirling around again.

Danny looked up at him sadly, and suddenly he understood what had changed his friend, taken the fire out of his eyes.

"If we stop trying…" he said, arguing against what hadn't even been said, arms outstretched helplessly.

"Look," Danny said, voice calm and rational and grating against every fibre in Tucker's body. This was the tone he used after he'd saved a kid from a ghost and was trying to make them believe that everything in the world was still okay.

"No one's joining anyway…" Danny was trying to be understanding, supportive of the people who had come after him with pitchforks ever since his hair turned white. Taking the side of people whose crimes of thoughtlessness and apathy were unforgiveable.

"They're cowards!" Tucker exclaimed, voice cracking.

Something shifted in Danny's eyes at the accusation. Without moving up out of his seat, he seemed to confront Tucker squarely as he snapped back, "They're trying to survive!" Tucker opened his mouth but Danny plowed on to keep him from saying anything he might regret. Sure, not everyone in town was even civil to the three of them, but if the humans didn't stick together, then they'd already lost, no matter what Vlad may or may not having been doing through the town legislature.

"The ghosts don't target them if they don't join us," he said. "You know that."

And Tucker _did_, but he hated the lecture. Being talked down to when knowing the facts still didn't change what was right or wrong in Amity Park.

Of course he knew that people who kept their heads down stayed out of trouble even if they didn't blindly follow the man they didn't know was half ghost himself. But those who knew that things were wrong and still did nothing to change it, even if the price of actively fighting painted a target on your head... they were the reason that Vlad was able to maintain his death grip on the town.

They had the power to change everything if they banded together- Vlad wouldn't have even bothered learning Tucker's name if he hadn't been Danny's best friend because a couple teenagers, even when armed with the best ghost hunting equipment that could be fused together in a basement, were no threat to the man- but instead they stayed neatly tucked away in their homes. Safe.

For now.

Until Danny wasn't able to stop a threat that would be more than happy to take out anyone they saw, no matter where the poor victim's allegiance lay. Amity Park wasn't a safe place. People were targeted and injured every day and it was getting worse.

How long would people be content to let things continue on this path before they would decide they had had enough?

The cold truth that was finally sinking through Tucker's thick skull was that it wouldn't happen until there weren't enough of them left to do anything about it.

Not while they could still hold onto the semblance of safety. Wisping tendrils of a fog thick enough to blind you but that you couldn't touch if you tried.

"They know it too," Danny continued. "So why would they join Phantom if it's just going to get them killed?" he asked, tone lined with iron as if he dared Tucker to voice any of the thoughts running through his head.

Danny blinked still green eyes. "They don't care what happens to the resident ghosts hunters who keep stirring up trouble."

Tucker wondered if he was talking about his parents, the crazy inventors who were in more danger than the rest of the town combined. Or if he was talking about them. His jaw clenched as he realized that the answer was probably the same either way. Good riddance if they were gone. Let the whole city get invaded in peace and quiet.

"Probably thing things are better without them," Danny added, echoing Tucker's thoughts.

"But," Tucker found himself protesting before he realized it. Halfheartedly because he wasn't really sure why he was bothering or how much he meant it. "But the propaganda's been helping!"

"Yeah," Danny breathed, fading back into the chair until there was no fight in him, no desire to get riled up and hash things with his best friend.

His eyes softened and for the first time he simply looked sad. Understanding.

Tucker stepped back. Breathing shakily, he stared, hoping that this new expression wasn't about to bring some new horrors with it.

Arguing, he could take, even if it was directed at the wrong target. But the smile Danny was giving him while the world was burning around him...

"It's going to have to stop."

Tucker had backed up until his leg thumped against the rickety bench. He collapsed down on it, so hard that Sam winced. Tucker pointedly ignored her look, not able to suffer any more sympathies. The slight jarring of his tailbone didn't matter much anyway in the grand scheme of things. Or the course of this conversation, even.

"Stop?" he murmured numbly.

"Yes," Danny replied, voice low and soothing, like he didn't have a care in the world. Like the fate of the city didn't rest on his shoulders. Like this one word wasn't signing his own death warrant.

Without the ability to openly oppose Vlad, now even the option to defend Phantom stripped away, there was no way that they could keep the town from turning on Danny. And it was only a matter of time before he was stopped, his efforts ground to a halt, the very people who had brought him down then left completely defenceless.

He could see the end of the road as clearly as he was sure Danny and Sam could.

How he could even be considering such a capitulation...

"But... why?" he asked, devastated.

Danny dropped his gaze to Sam's hand clasped in his, then met her eyes for a long moment. "Because Vlad's..." he choked on the words, then turned to stare at the cement floor long enough to ground himself.

Long moments passed and Tucker fought not to interrupt, to shake the answer out of Danny because he didn't understand any of this.

"Not... afraid to go after the people close to me," he finally said.

Tucker looked at Danny, who still had his eyes planted firmly at his feet. Then he turned to Sam, who looked at him for a minute before dropping her eyes too.

He kept looking between them, confusion, concern, and consternation roiling inside him until he wondered if it was possible to feel anything else. But then, understanding dawning, he realized what Danny had said, why they both refused to make eye contact, and his mouth went dry.

"He... Vlad..." he rasped, the idea expanding until it filled his brain, until there was no room for anything but this one promise. "He'll kill her if you do anything," he breathed.

He shouldn't have been so surprised, really, at the threat.

Not coming from the manipulative mayor whose underhanded scheming had resulted in controlling a good portion of the ghosts that made it to the mortal realm- by his help, Tucker didn't doubt, because they'd found a way to lock the Fenton Portal down even though it didn't seem to stem the flow of spirits for long- and therefore responsible for most of the injuries that had occurred, whether he consciously ordered them or not.

That wasn't even taking into account the threats made to Mr. F. He might have taken comfort in the fact that Danny's dad was still alive years after Vlad had resolved to kill him, but he'd long ago realized that Jack Fenton's death was the endgame, and Vlad would prolong the play for as long as it suited him, throwing various ghosts their way just to keep Danny on his toes, but not really expecting anything to come of any of his attempts.

He could have invisibly flown into Jack's room and blasted him, electrocuted him, overshadowed him, or intangibly dragged his heart out of his body before anyone had been the wiser. He didn't need to send carnivorous birds that warned Danny they had come to peck his father to death.

But now, he'd made a standing offer to kill one of them, holding Sam hostage to keep Danny in line. This was different. A matter of fact statement about a means to an end. And they had all seen how highly Vlad valued the lives of the citizens it was supposed to be his civil duty to protect.

He wouldn't even blink before murdering her.

Sam looked his way for the briefest of moments before apologizing in a voice so uncharacteristically quiet that he almost couldn't believe that it was her talking. "I'm sorry," she said.

Then Danny was there, thumb rubbing circles across her hand, and ducking his head a little to look into her eyes. "Hey," he said fervently until she brought her head up again. When he knew he had her undivided attention, he pressed, "Don't be, Sam." He was shaking his head. Knew how to talk anyone but himself out of the blame game.

"It's Vlad," he stressed, as if that absolved her of everything, which it did, really, even if that didn't change the outcome of their situation. "He would use anyone in your position."

Tucker wasn't sure that she was listening enough to take the words to heart until she snorted. Both boys looked at her warily, wondering what was going through her mind.

Then she cocked an eyebrow at Danny. "That's what I get for being your girlfriend, huh?" she asked.

Danny smiled a little at that, a dark humor creeping into his eyes. "Sorry," he murmured as he pulled her close and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

And suddenly, they were good.

Well, not _good_, obviously, with a death threat tying Danny's hands with a vengeance that any kind of hero's complex wouldn't be able to stand for long without chafing, straining at the bonds until something gave. The deal or the bound soul.

Tucker stared at his two best friends and wondered what the better option was in this case.

Sam's life or Danny's conscience.

He didn't think they'd be able to live through the loss of either of them.

But Danny was trying to put as positive a spin on this as was humanly possible. And with Sam looking back up at him with more life in her eyes than Tucker had seen in a long time, well, he didn't think he had the heart to butt in with realities. At least not yet.

He was sure Danny knew just how much of a struggle it was to keep quiet, because he looked long and hard at him. Tucker stared right back and finally nodded. Danny dipped his head once in silent acknowledgement, gratitude shining in his eyes.

This was already hard enough.

And nothing that Tucker said would be able to dissuade Danny from a course of action once he had decided. Besides which, he trusted him. Both as Danny and as Phantom, he was the most brilliant strategist and skilled fighter he'd ever met. Not to mention the biggest self sacrificial jerk on the face of the planet and pretty much the only friend he'd had since he was six. Back when the world was a normal place and ghosts didn't exist and they didn't have to live in the shadows, scared that their classmates and neighbors would be reduced to a casualty on the nightly news.

Looking at Sam tucked snugly into Danny's side, though, Tucker could almost imagine that they lived a normal life where every move wasn't dictated by an obsessed fruit-loop who would stop at nothing—including destroying an entire city and everyone in it—in order to have his way with a single family.

He could pretend that they were all hanging out in his parent's old house, commandeering the furniture around the TV as they all relaxed after finishing their homework for the day. If he just focused on the couch and ignored the corrugated steel sheets around them and the dust mites floating through a stray beam of sunlight spearing in through a hole in the roof, the space narrowed to just the three of them.

Happy, in this moment, despite everything.

He didn't have the heart to break that up yet.

Sam sighed and leaned back against Danny. He closed his eyes and basked in her presence, savoring the warm touch and smell of lavender as he held her close.

The one hand that kept rubbing absently against her arm stilled for a second before starting up again. Almost as an afterthought, Danny transformed back into his human half, lighting up the room for a moment before his hair was black again.

Tucker blinked the stars out of his eyes and Sam just grinned.

"Shoulda done that sooner," she hummed. "You were cold."

Danny's mouth twisted down apologetically. "Sorry."

Tucker smiled softly at the banter, wishing he had the ability to freeze this moment in time and keep them all here, all together and alive for just a little longer. Before they had to leave this ransacked room to face the harsh reality of their lives, where they always had to keep one eye behind them and every ghostly encounter could be their last.

He couldn't stop time or change their circumstances, but he could let Sam and Danny have this moment to themselves, one that they shouldn't have had to steal in a deserted warehouse or as Sam flipped through a well stocked first aid kit with ever increasing dexterity.

He tried to fade to the background, let their moment be private and as long as they needed it to be. Unobtrusively slipping one hand back into his cargo pocket full of scraps, he made mental inventory of what he already had piled on his workbench at home, and how his catches of the day would supplement the pieces he was tinkering with.

Part of a frayed wire that might have a few salvageable inches once he peeled off the melted red plastic coating.

A few spent bullet casings he found wedged under a brick at the edge of an alley. He determinedly tried not to picture how they'd gotten there, which face on the news they had been responsible for. But, with resources as scarce as they were, for known allies of Phantom, anyway, he wasn't about to ignore anything that could be useful at a later date.

And besides, his parents had banned him from dismantling anything else in their house that still worked. So if he wanted ghost hunting gadgets, it was up to Danny to smuggle discarded blueprints and Tucker to figure out how to fix what wasn't yet right.

He was just thinking about the new calibrations he could try on miniature ray gun and how one of the bullet casings would make a perfect bottom for it if he could figure out how to slice a few millimeters off his prototype's width. It might take recalculating a few functions to get rid of one of the wires, but…

Nothing lasted forever, not even the stolen moments that he tried to prolong as much as possible. Sam shifted against Danny with a short sigh and opened her eyes. Danny blinked his open and Tucker sat up straight, pretending that he hadn't been zoning out for the two of them to have a lovebird moment.

The edges of Danny's mouth quirked upward, however, and he had a knowing, grateful gaze.

Tucker preempted anything he might have been about to say by changing the subject completely with a suggestion. "Hey, could we rig up a ghost shield around Sam's house? Or, at least, her room?" he amended with a tilt of his head.

The technology hadn't been perfected yet and still ran most effectively when powered by the portal. Sam's house wouldn't have that, but if they made a semi permanent portable version, even if it was smaller, it would still be helpful.

To a certain extent.

It would have a limited range of effectiveness, but it would keep all of the minions out, even if it wouldn't stop half ghost boyfriends from making midnight visits or mental mayors and any humans under his thumb from breaking through. But still. Every weapon had to count for something.

The more the merrier. Safer. Whatever.

And Danny was considering it, eyes flicking back and forth and squinting as he recalled how the device was set up in the lab and whether or not they could adapt it without directly asking his parents about it.

Tucker didn't necessarily approve of Danny's keeping his parents in the dark about Vlad's intentions toward them, but he certainly couldn't begrudge them the sense of normality it lent the family. Nothing like living under a death threat to dampen the mood and make everyone ultra paranoid. A warning wouldn't really help anyway, not without complicating matters with further explanations that got too close to a secret he still refused to share.

He understood the way it needed to be and wouldn't call Danny out on it. Not when it was his life on the line. Tucker may have more right than some. But he didn't have the right to comment on this one. Not since Danny decided what he would do in the weeks after the accident as Sam and Tucker sat huddled shoulder to shoulder with him on his bed.

Now, he was here to support Danny in whatever way possible.

Up to and including completely abandoning all semblances of a normal life, skipping school and avoiding his parents to reinvent ghost fighting equipment and using his now outdated computers to come up with pro-Phantom flyers that he could surreptitiously drop around town without anyone seeing.

Anyone seeing or he'd be outed to Vlad's cronies who were always on the lookout for a good next target.

Danny was shaking his head now, not quite dismissing Tucker's suggestion but not finding it perfect.

"Yeah," he allowed, "But what happens when she leaves the house?" Tucker didn't miss the fact that Danny was taking the optimistic view of Tucker's technological conversion prowess. "Sam can't stay there forever," he argued, and Sam took up the thread immediately.

"I'm not going to lock myself up in my room because of this," she stated, all fire now. "And you can't make me; I don't care."

She glared at Tucker. As it was his idea, she thought he needed the convincing, but he'd already put his hands up in surrender. He smiled, nearly laughed. It was a horrible situation in which to be laughing, but he had missed this. The biting banter and acidic wit.

"Not even if I could find a way to turn the glow purple? Or into some kind of a black light?" he grinned.

The continuation of her rolling tirade stopped nearly before it began as she swallowed it up at the lucrative, if probably impossible, offer. Then she realized just how long of a shot it would be and that she wouldn't actually stay under house arrest if the color palette suited her.

So she stuck her tongue out at him.

Then, he really did laugh. "Don't worry," he said. "I can almost guarantee you that it won't be pink. I don't think that's a color naturally occurring in the Ghost Zone." He looked over at Danny, glance at the expert turning the vague reassurance into a question.

Danny shook his head, amused. "Not that I've seen." Then, turning to Sam with fake solemnity, "But don't worry, I promise we won't force you to stay in one."

Tucker continued, nodding with wide eyes. "We wouldn't expect anyone to survive for a week in a pink ghost shield."

"Least of all you," Danny snickered, even as Sam shoved an elbow into his ribs.

"You jerk!" she laughed, belying the accusation by sidling up even closer to his side.

"What?" he asked, arm coming up to wrap her closer. "I think you might be able to last three days."

Tucker repressed a smile, keeping his face straight as he shook his head. "Two days."

"Two days," Danny automatically corrected, grin not faltering. Using his arm to trap Sam's beside her when she tried to bring them up to swat at him. It was a halfhearted attempt at best, and they were both pretending not to smile as she squirmed a bit for appearance's sake.

Trying to keep the mock fight from escalating any further—concrete floor and abandoned furniture not the best place for even contained rough housing—Tucker butted in with a new idea. "What about the Spector Deflector?"

Sam bolted upright in rage. "I am not wearing that chastity belt of ghostly ugliness!" she protested, hotly. Affronted that anyone would even dare suggest such a thing to her face. Tucker leaned forward, clearly about to make another smart remark when she presented real arguments that he wouldn't be able to brush off with a jab about her independent opinions.

"Plus, everyone would see it," she said.

And it was true. Even though she didn't bare as much skin as she used to anymore—getting tossed around on asphalt paving quickly convinces you to wear layers—but her silhouette was still sleek and there was no way they could hide the bulky silver ring.

It wasn't just an issue of style, either, not just her vanity and self consciousness while walking around in public. If Paulina could pick it out at a glance, so could any ghost working for Plasmius. And protective measures on behalf of a hostage kind of ruined the whole point of keeping someone hostage. It wouldn't end well.

"And I'm not about to start changing my wardrobe just so Vlad can't give me a hug, okay?" she declared vehemently.

As Danny pulled a face at the mental image, Tucker bowed to the sentiment, but wondered if there was a way to convert the technology to something smaller that could be worn without being so conspicuous. Perhaps as a bracelet. Sam had plenty of those. One more added to the collection, or one slipped underneath the thick leather bands she never took off wouldn't raise any alarm bells and would still deter any ghosts coming to pay a call.

Or half ghosts. Which wouldn't end so well. Vlad still had height and weight and years of training on his side even if his ghosts powers were leeched out of him for an unspecified amount of time.

And Danny would simply melt away into a wisp of smoke if he couldn't hug his girlfriend and still retain the powers he needed to protect the town.

So much for that idea, even if he had the means to act upon it at any point in the near future.

Still, it was something to tuck away in the back of his mind for another time.

Then Danny's face fell, fingers protectively closing around Sam's shoulder as he said, "Not that it would really help."

Sam glanced over at Tucker in confusion, then quirked an eyebrow at Danny. For all her protests against the admittedly unfashionable device, none of them had ever discounted the effectiveness of another tool in their arsenal. They couldn't afford to. So Danny's defeated tone confused both of them.

Until he continued on to explain, "It would just end up being counter productive. Vlad would see it and it would tick him off. Besides," he said, turning to Sam. "He can still take you out even if you're wearing it."

Knowing eyes fixed on Tucker, expounding on the train of thought that Tucker hadn't gotten to yet. "He doesn't have to touch her in order to hurt her. In fact, he probably wouldn't bother getting that close. He can just blast her long distance," he said. "Or shoot her," he added. "Or hire someone else to take her out while making it look like a non ghost related accident. Spector Deflector wouldn't do a thing to prevent that," he continued in an oddly calm voice.

Tucker made a strangled noise as he shifted wide eyed in his seat, unwilling to believe such n eventuality could be their reality. Though, given everything else he'd seen Vlad do, he wasn't sure why. Why shouldn't Sam's end be mundane, brutal, and short? And completely unpreventable. Vlad was used to getting his way.

Imagining that they could stave him off with garlic, crucifixes, and modified ghost gadgets was purely wishful thinking. And Tucker thought he'd abandoned that out of necessity long ago. Or maybe he preserved it out of necessity.

Whatever the case was, he could see the stark reality that Danny was describing for them.

"You're the granddaughter of the cellophane twirling toothpick King," Danny explained to Sam, whose expression was an exquisite twist of despair, denial, and defiance. "Your parents are the wealthiest people in Amity Park besides Vlad. You're important. You know the right people and move in high and mighty circles." Sam's made a face but didn't contradict him.

"That's gonna give Vlad a lot of playing ground," Danny said. "He could make it look like a kidnapping for ransom gone wrong or something that has absolutely nothing to do with ghosts." He huffed bitterly. "Trust me, he would figure something out and no one would ever be able to trace it back to him except for us."

His eyes slid over to Tucker as he amended, "I mean, us."

Because Sam would be dead by that point.

"And he'd make sure that you'd never be able to prove anything," Sam murmured in reply.

Danny nodded slowly, like he didn't want to confirm the fact that he wouldn't even be able to get justice for her murder if he was unable to prevent it.

Tucker hated it. Hated that they were trapped in a life with no good choices, no nice endings for the people who tried to do the right thing. Just blackmailing teenagers into letting the slimiest half ghost politician on the face of the planet to turn the town into his own private kingdom overrun by the dead.

He stood up again, not caring that his sudden movement left the bench under him rattling unsteadily against the pavement. The situation was perfectly clear. There wasn't anything he could do but he couldn't just stand there doing nothing.

Two pairs of eyes followed him sadly as he paced back and forth in front of them. Pitying, he might have said if he wasn't too angry at the ultimatum to notice anything outside of the strip of cement his world had narrowed down to.

His mouth was working even before his brain had formed any thoughts coherent enough to say. A few frustrated noises, and then he whirled back to his two best friends, the bravest people he knew, who were just sitting down and taking this. Maybe they'd had more time to process the bad news than he had but that shouldn't have mattered. They shouldn't have accepted this because it wasn't inevitable. It couldn't be.

It just wasn't _fair_.

"Well, then we… tell the world!" he shouted. "Explain that you were being blackmailed. That he'd threatened you, told you that he would do it!"

"And they're going to believe a couple teenagers over one of the most influential men in the world, a guy who has the entire town underneath his thumb?" Danny asked, more gentle than sarcastic. Still too calm, too rational about this whole thing. Something in Tucker's expression twisted and Danny must have sensed that his words rankled more than they soothed.

"It's not like I got it in writing," he continued, a wry smile playing at his lips.

It soon vanished and Danny leaned forward, in all earnesty as tilted his face up to meet Tucker's. "But okay, even if we tried to explain… tried to expose him, what would happen next?"

Tucker deflated at the thought. Vlad would retaliate, of course. He would never just sit back and take an upsetting of his plans without coming back to completely destroy theirs.

"He'll say _why_ he was blackmailing me," Danny said, something creeping into his eyes that Tucker never wanted to see there again.

The hero of Amity Park shouldn't be _afraid_.

"If I try to expose him, he spills my secret." He took in a shaky breath, eyes falling to his hands for a moment.

Licking his lips, Danny continued, laying out the hard truth once and for all. "The only reason that the townspeople haven't turned me over to face his justice yet… is because they don't know where to find Phantom when he disappears. Soon as my secret's out…" he swallowed heavily as he hesitantly traced his way to the end of this road, "I'm dead."

Tucker didn't even know if he was breathing as Danny kept talking, the situation sounding worse and worse with every word. "And if I'm gone," he whispered brokenly, "so are my mom and dad and Jazz and I…" he shook his head. "I can't do that, Tucker." Eyes rose and fell again. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I can't."

The silence grew painful before Tucker finally managed to say, "No, I… understand."

He understood only too well, because at the end of the day, Vlad always had the upper hand. And really, what could three teenagers do in the face of power like that?

"So this is… it?" Tucker asked, hands fluttering uselessly in front of him.

Danny's jaw set and he looked at Tucker easily now as he promised, "Only until I can figure something out." Grabbing Sam's hand, he said, "We're not giving up. I just need a chance to come up with something that can work." He became more animated as he continued, "There's got to be some kind of loophole we can use…"

"No," Tucker interrupted.

Danny stopped to look at his friend in confusion.

"No," Tucker said, even though every word pained him. But they couldn't do this. Danny couldn't do this. Not with stakes like these. Not when Vlad was so obsessed. "We can't risk your entire family, Danny. Vlad's going to be watching you." He turned to Sam, who would be dead if Danny tried anything. Pale and cold and never going to smile again if Danny stepped outside of his allotted zone. "And he's not going to care about loopholes."

Danny's mask of calm control slipped for the first time. "But I can't just… sit around and do nothing!" he spat, voice quavering.

Sam moved her free hand to rub against his shoulder.

Tucker watched them both almost impassively as something shifted in his mind. Maybe Danny had taken all of the unproductive anger out of him, or hearing Danny's frustrations suddenly made the path clear to him, but everything seemed to fall away, the pressure against his gut easing as he knew what he needed to do.

"Yes, you can," he said easily, telling his leader to take charge by stepping down, even if it went against everything he'd ever believed in. But things had changed now that Vlad had laid down this ultimatum and the stakes were too important not to adapt accordingly. They couldn't lose Danny or everyone in the entire city would be doomed and they couldn't lose Sam or the rest of the Fentons or they'd lose Danny. In spirit if not in body. Danny was the key and Tucker had to do everything in his power to keep him in play. "Yes, you can," he repeated, "if that's what it's going to take to keep everyone safe."

He wiped a trembling hand across his mouth and then said, "But I can't. I'm…" he looked up at the shifting beam of light as it came through the rusting metal walls.

Danny stared at him, wide-eyed, and he managed a strangled, "What?"

Tucker didn't answer for a moment, hand travelling back to his pocket where his fingers curled around the cartridges, warmed from sitting against his leg all morning. The smooth metal of the bullet casings hardened the resolve in his mind as he considered the step he was about to take.

"I'm going to run for mayor," he declared, watching the swirls of dust floating across the room.

The stunned silence was tangible, weighing down on them until something clinked against the floor somewhere and stirred Sam back to life.

"You… aren't serious," she said woodenly.

Tucker looked back at her with clear eyes. "I am," he said, meaning it with everything he had in him.

"No, Tuck," Danny breathed, face stricken.

"No, I can," Tucker said, warming up to his impossible task now that he'd said it aloud, all of the arguments he'd made when countering the fantasy in his own head seemingly unimportant as he explained, "Look, Vlad's term in office is ending this fall. And no one else is going to run against him because he's been unopposed for so long that no one really has a choice about the matter. But maybe… maybe this will throw him off his game, actually having someone run against him." Tucker was pacing again, warming up to his subject with each step. "If nothing else, it'll get at least a little bit of attention off of you for a while…"

He ignored the "But…" coming from behind him.

His hands were constantly moving now as he continued building his case. "And if we can't do pro Phantom propaganda anymore, then we'll do pro Tucker," he decided with a smile. "And, of course, the biggest part of any political campaign is digging up dirt on your opponent…"

"Tucker…"

But he was already running through a mental catalogue of everything he knew about the mayor, all of the slur campaigns he could run that might finally wake some people up out of their comfortable ignorance and apathy. He could already picture some of the flyers he'd pass out, the posters that would go up on brick walls as people walked quickly to avoid trouble.

And then, of course, there was the matter of his own image and slogans. T.F., of course, would be his solid standby. And he still knew all of the upper class girls at school even if he didn't bother showing up much anymore. He'd probably have to start attending classes again, now that he thought about it, because good luck to Vlad finding anything else bad on his innocent teenage record.

Unless he pulled the tied-to-Phantom card, in which case, Tucker could appropriate pro-Phantom rhetoric back into his campaign simply to preserve his own face. Danny wouldn't like it, but Tucker almost wanted Vlad to just try it.

Until he did, though, Tucker was willing to make concessions. After all, the entire point of this was to keep Danny and his family as safe as possible while the pendulum kept swinging closer.

"I'll leave Phantom out of it completely if you want me to," he assured Danny, "but if Vlad turned conversation that way, then he'd be inviting me to defend you left and right. And it would be expected and no one could fault me for explaining my causes in politics. That's just what you do in politics," he said, unconcerned with the consequences.

"But Tucker," Sam finally broke into the happy tirade.

"Tuck…" Danny said when his friend finally turned toward them again. "He's going to kill you."

"Yeah," Tucker sighed. Swallowed. "Well," he finally shrugged, like _what can you do?_

"Tucker…" Danny pressed, horrified concern plastered across his face.

"No," Tucker spun around and pointed a finger at him. "No, I can't take this anymore, okay? So I'm gonna try to do something to stop it. And either I live or I die," he admitted, all righteous fury now. "Just like real life. Just like what we've been doing all these years. It's not any worse than it has been facing down Skulker or standing between some ghost vultures and your dad, is it? Or even just walking to school knowing that Vlad knows we're friends!"

Any way you looked at it, Tucker's number was already up. He was already on Vlad's radar and with the steps he'd taken over the past few years, his life was never going to end any other way. So he might as well go out with a bang and try to achieve some good by it.

"But if I die, people are gonna have to take notice. I mean… I'm a nobody," he said, stealing a glance at Sam. "He can't turn this into a kidnapping gone wrong or an assassination attempt on a millionaire's son. And I've never done anything that people would want me dead for. So I die just weeks after announcing my campaign against Vlad?" he stopped to laugh harshly, an odd expression twisting his features.

Vlad may have them in checkmate, but that didn't mean they were powerless.

"There's no way he can play that one off or pass it off as an accident," he argued, eyes bright. "So maybe that would count for something, push him out finally. Make people wake up!"

Sacrificing a life already targeted in order to get rid of Vlad for good? He might not be the one in the trio with the hero-complex, but he knew that there was no contest here, no choice other than the one he was making now.

"But if not…" he said, entertaining the idea that he might survive until November. "If I live… then maybe I'll win." It was practically an impossibility, but that's what they were all trying for these days, wasn't it? "Maybe people have had enough and this will be the sign they've been waiting for. If enough people pick their heads up out of the sand then we can legitimately push him out of office and be able to change all of this!"

He'd turned to walk back to the center of the room and flung his arms out at the warehouse, the town, their lives, all of it. There was a chance that they could change it all. Improbable, yes, but so was surviving in Amity Park unscathed. So was having a half ghost as your best friend.

It was the only option left to him and Tucker was going to embrace it with open arms.

"And if not," he said, "if we don't kick him out now then I'll again next time and the next time after that and we'll make progress. And if we don't make progress then at least I'll grow old or get killed knowing that I'm trying to fix things in a way that I can."

"Tuck…" Sam lamented softly, pain and awe freely mixing as she looked up at him and suddenly his breath caught in his throat.

He bowed his head, overcome by this new thought. Danny's hands were tied. Sam, as hostage, wasn't allowed to do anything either. He was the only one free to move and, at any sign that Danny or Sam were helping him or supporting him and the whole thing would collapse. Instead of splitting Vlad's attention, it would force his hand. Sam would be dead and it would be entirely his fault.

Tucker looked away sharply, unable to look her in the face as he took a few breaths to calm himself down, convince himself that there was a way around this. Because there was. He just didn't like it.

Because he could take full advantage of the political system to run against Vlad… as long as he was alone. As long as there was no way to connect them anymore. Which meant no more phone calls, no more meetings. Ending their friendship here and now. For good.

Turning his back on them, Tucker blinked rapidly as he willed his eyes to stop stinging.

He was perfectly ready to sacrifice his own life, but this was the first thing that had made him reconsider his plan. His resolve wavered as he thought about all they had been through during the past decade. Knew it would crumble away entirely if he looked at them now, eyes wide with concern as they all but pleaded for him to give up this insane venture that really had no chance of succeeding.

Was he really willing to give it all up to secure a death sentence alone?

He squeezed his eyes shut and thought about the way that Danny and Sam's hands were intertwined behind him.

Yes. Yes, they deserved happiness together. Fiery Sam shouldn't have been shuffled into the role of hostage when she wanted nothing more than to wield a modified Fenton Bazooka over her shoulder to point directly in Vlad's face. Danny deserved more than three hours of sleep at a time. A moment's reprieve when he wasn't being blasted by ghosts and rebuffed by townspeople who still hated the very sight of him even when it was their only protection against the real dangers they faced. No one deserved to live like that.

If his loneliness was the price to pay to start setting things to right, well, how could he really pit his happiness against the fate of the entire city? Even taking the basic morality of the thing out of the equation, his comfort wasn't worth that.

He would cut himself off and if he lived to see things set right, he would never have to leave their side again. And if he died before his vision could be realized, well, he couldn't be lonely if he was dead. At least he wouldn't have to live with this horrible reality any more once he died. He would either change it or be rid of it entirely. And that didn't really sound too bad to him.

Tucker cleared his throat and turned back around.

"We're, uh, going to have to split up, though," he said. "So that Vlad can't say I'm working with you guys to violate terms of the agreement." He plowed on before the real meaning of what he was saying could sink in and kick their rebuttals into gear. He'd made up his mind and he had to see this through, no matter what. They'd both done more than their fair share of protecting the town, protecting him. It was his turn to step up and do something that only he could do now. And he couldn't let them dissuade him from that. Not when it was their lives he was saving.

"This will all be on me," he said, brooking no arguments. "Win or lose. You two have enough to deal with right now so," he blinked and looked at the wall above their heads. "Just stay safe and I'll… do what I can for as long as I can."

Sam and Danny stared at him, trying to understand what else he might mean and not coming up with anything but the same dawning suspicions of what he was about to do.

"I mean it," he said shakily, pointing repeatedly to them. "You don't call unless it's a life or death emergency, okay?" His mouth was shaking now and he couldn't stop the tears that started welling up in his eyes.

He couldn't do this. But he had to.

"Goodbye," he whispered before tearing past them and shouldering out the door.

Sam and Danny both twisted around in the chair, limbs tangling for a few precious seconds as Tucker ran down the street.

Sam was the first to her feet, shoving up and pounding across the pavement in her combat boots, determined to bring Tucker back and beat some sense into that thick idiotic self sacrificial skull of his when something caught her arm. She looked up in disbelief to find Danny holding onto her, not for support but to keep her in place.

"What?" she breathed, uncomprehendingly as she tried to twist out of his grasp to go after her friend.

"Wait, Sam, wait," he said, easily grabbing her other hand as it pounded against his shoulder.

"No," she protested, unable to believe what she was hearing. "No, we have to… go… we have to…!" she gasped.

Warm hands grasped her shoulders and turned her toward him. "Sam," Danny said, shaking her a little. "Sam, look at me, listen to me," he pleaded and she turned to see his red rimmed eyes piercing her wild ones.

She stared for nearly a minute before she realized what he was trying to tell her but was unable to say. "You're… going to let…? Danny, he's going to… going to…" she choked out.

She'd thought she'd known the worst coming to the warehouse. That she was a hostage, that she was keeping Danny from doing his best to protect the town, that she could be killed at any moment and that until then, she would be letting Tucker down when he was the one working hardest behind the scenes to make sure that they all survived whatever Vlad was able to throw at them. Finishing up the ghost fighting equipment from nearly indecipherable blueprints, sorting through the feeds of bugged lines to find information that would keep them alive through another trap, printing up the flyers that kept the townsfolk from turning on them when they had to regroup in a vulnerable alleyway after a particularly nasty encounter.

But now, now, he was going to do this, sacrifice everything for them and Danny was letting him just run out the door?

"Danny?"

He took her in his arms, tucking her head under his chin and wrapping a palm over her hair as if to reassure himself that she wasn't going anywhere. That she, at least, was safe.

"I'll find him tonight," he said hoarsely. "Before he has a chance to do anything stupid," he assured her, or maybe himself as he fought the urge to fly straight through the wall after him even though he knew it would do more harm than good. "Talk to him alone. Make sure no one can see me so… he doesn't feel cornered."

Sam moved under him, hand curling into his shirt. "But Danny…" she said, helplessly.

"I know, Sam," he said, throat closing up. "I know."

And he hugged her closer, holding her as she trembled and silent tears fell down his face.

* * *

**The end.**

**(With a couple related sentence-stories in Apricity's chapter 35.)**

**EDIT: huuuuuge thank you to bibliomatsuri who caught that I'd inadvertently mixed up the Spector Deflector with the Plasmius Maximus. oops. But in case you ever needed to know, yes, Fanfiction now has a highly useful "find and replace" option in the Doc Manager. yay! XD**


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